


Hold onto Each Other

by jacarandas



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Brother-Sister Relationships, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-13 11:41:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29775633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jacarandas/pseuds/jacarandas
Summary: “I think I’m pregnant.”When Leia drops the bomb, she and Luke are crouched behind sacks of salt, hiding from troopers shooting on the other side. Faintly she hears sounds of explosion and screaming. Luke is staring at her with a dumb face.Two months after Bespin.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Leia Organa/Han Solo
Kudos: 30





	Hold onto Each Other

**Author's Note:**

> Post-ESB. 
> 
> Title from Florence + the Machine - June

“I think I’m pregnant.”

When Leia drops the bomb, she and Luke are crouched behind sacks of salt, hiding from troopers shooting on the other side. Faintly she hears sounds of explosion and screaming. Luke is staring at her with a dumb face. Leia chews her lips, and adds,

“It’s been two months since I… you know.”

 _“What,”_ Luke hisses, finally recovering from his shock. “Are you alright? When did you know? Oh Force, who is the fa- never mind, I know that answer. And you are telling me this while we have who-knows-how-many troopers shooting at us?”

“Luke.” Leia warns him. At least he has the modesty to flinch.

“Sorry,” Luke sighs. “It’s just, not a good time right now.” He makes a vague gesture at the air. 

“Yes.” She agrees. Even at that very moment the sacks were getting hit, bursting salt out of the blaster holes.

“When we get out of this, we will talk.” Luke gives her a pointed glance while he takes out his lightsaber.

She groans internally before she follows suit to fire her blaster.

~

“I got suspicious two weeks ago.” She says, once they are on a ship and safely away from the trooper filled planet. She is exhausted, and because she can’t sit on the pilot seat without missing the infuriating heat on her back, she sits on the floor, leaning against Luke. His bright presence makes her ache a lot more bearable. “I didn’t give it much thought 'till then, there were so many things going on.”

And there were. With Luke losing his hand and getting a new one, regrouping with what was left of the Alliance, setting up a temporal base, making plans to save Han, being stuck in a sudden lockdown due to Imperials surrounding them, narrowly escaping… They were all tired to their bones. 

“You didn’t test it?” Luke asks quietly.

“No,” Leia huffs out a bitter laugh. “The base was still too new and undersupplied to have anything like that. And with the lockdown there was no way to gain access to a tester, so.”

“You just held it to yourself.” Eyes sad, Luke finishes her sentence. This was getting common between them, like they knew what the other was going to say before they actually let it out loud; Leia sometimes secretly wonders if this is what having a brother feels like.

“I wasn’t going to tell anyone until I was sure, but it kind of… blurted out of my mouth back there. I needed,” She shuts her eyes tight. “I needed someone to know too.” _Two weeks is damn too long to question oneself endlessly_ , she thinks. 

Luke gently takes her hand in his palm. It’s his new hand, synthetic yet warm. She realizes that her own hands are trembling. “We will find a doctor as soon as we land.” He promises. “It’s going to be fine.” He adds, a little hesitantly. 

He squeezes her hand. She squeezes back.

~

They dress up casually, with dirt-colored clothes rough and worn. They blend into the crowd, looking poor, tired, and insignificant, just another couple from another dust land fresh off the ship to seek a new life. (Leia thought about going alone, but Luke gave her a stern gaze that clearly conveys _not a chance_ , so that was that.) 

This planet has a general air of mistrust towards droids, so they find themselves facing a humanoid doctor, a short woman with dark skin and grey eyes. “Your husband?” She asks Leia, tilting her head towards Luke, handing out forms to sign. Scribbling fake names, they both nod. Really, who could a man who takes a woman out to see an obstetrician be? 

After running a few tests, the doctor sits them down and says,

“You’re not pregnant.”

“Oh.” Is what Leia says, her face pale and unreadable.

“It’s highly probable that you are missing your menstruation due to intense stress and irregular eating habits and sleeping hours. How many hours do you sleep a day?”

“Enough,” Leia mutters. The doctor is not impressed. 

“The obvious solution is to reduce stress and have a regular eating and sleeping schedule. Your cycle will eventually return more or less in a few weeks, but it is not good for your body to carry on like this.”

But how can she? How can she take the time to eat when there are plans to build, strategies to examine, orders to give? How can she sleep knowing that every time she makes a wrong step lives are lost? When she knows that her love is out there frozen and helpless? Looking at her stubborn face, the doctor shakes her head and sighs.

“I’ll prescribe you some nutritional supplements.”

~

“Are you okay?” Luke asks, voice soft.

“I’m fine.” Leia answers briskly.

The road back to their ship is filled with silence, Luke occasionally glancing at Leia with quiet worry and Leia masking the storm inside her with a stoic face. They remain like that when they set a course in space to the rendezvous point. It is Luke who finally breaks silence with a sigh.

“Leia, come on. Talk to me.”

For a moment, nothing changes. Luke stares at Leia, and Leia stubbornly stares not at Luke. Then with a deep shudder, Leia breaks too, hard lines leaving her shoulders and steel slipping from her gaze. She presses her hand against her dry eyelids, not quite crying, and mumbles, “I guess I should feel relieved.” 

Luke waits patiently. He is becoming disturbingly good at it. So Leia continues.

“I mean, what would I do with a baby? _We are at war_ , for Force’s sake, and I didn’t plan this, I didn’t plan any of this. What will I do? Carry it in a sling while I fire shots at the Imperials? Sing lullabies so it won’t cry and expose where we are hiding?” She lets out a dry, humorless laugh. “I should be glad.

“I should be,” She repeats, lowering her hands and glaring at them. “And I think I am, _I am_ relieved to a certain extent. It’s just that…” To her horror, a drop of water lands on her hand, and another, and another and another. “It would have been mine and Han’s. We would have been the baby’s. And if we don’t get Han back,” Her voice cracks, “It would have been all I have left of him.”

“Oh, Leia.” Luke whispers, wrapping his arms around her shoulders. Leia realizes she’s crying. She can’t remember the last time she cried. She didn’t cry when Alderaan was destroyed before her eyes. She didn’t cry when Han was taken away from her. Tears are for the soft. She is hard, angry, fierce, and bitter. Never soft. And yet.

It seems that all the years of grief and sorrow are crashing down on her at once. Blurry-sighted, she desperately clings on Luke’s arm, and sees traces of tears on his cheeks too. 

They hold onto each other.

~

“You know, I am going to be an uncle one day,” Luke says afterwards, in a light tone, eyes still a bit puffy from crying.

“Oh?” Leia raises her eyebrow. Her eyes are a little swollen like Luke’s, but neither care to comment. Luke smiles.

“Yeah. They will call me Uncle Luke. I will spoil them so hard, but you’ll let me spend time with them anyway because you and Han will need someone to babysit.”

“Is that so,” She comments dryly, unable to stop the amusement leaking to her face.

“Yes. Because we will get him back, Leia.” He looks her right in the eye, blue eyes strong and sincere. “It is not the end. If you want, you will have it. More family. If you don’t want it then, well,” He shrugs, “I won’t be Uncle Luke. I’ll be the good friend who occasionally annoys you both by tagging along your dates.”

Leia can't help but smile. 

“I do like the sound of Uncle Luke though.”

**Author's Note:**

> I love my Space Twins.


End file.
